At what distance do you zero your rifles?

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So a few days ago I put together another rifle, and moved the scopes on 2 of my other ones.

I went out to a friend's range and their berms were at different distances from the ones at my range.

Where do you guys zero your rifles and do you just make mental notes of how much it should drop/rise depending on distance?

My range is 25 yards so I always sighted in everything there.
Now I'm trying to learn a bit more about trajectories and think i would be better served with some of your knowledge.

I'm shooting.
223/5.56 and .22LR
 
I go three inches high at 100 yards. I do this so the rifle will give a kill shot anywhere from 50 to 200 yards. Three inches high at 100 yards should be right on or real close to bullseye at 50 and 200 yards. At 50 yards the bullet is still going up and at 200 it has dropped the three inches it was high by then.
 
I have different guns set for differt ranges it depends what I'm going to use them for.

As for my ar15 I sight it in at 25 yards low 2 in so at 100 I'm on at 100 I'm 4in high at 200 I'm 8in high and at 300 I'm dead on 300 being the longest distance I can shoot right now.
 
It depends on what I am using the rifle for. My training rifle is zeroed at 50 and my competition rifle is zeroed at 200, 300, and 600.
 
It depends on what I am using the rifle for. My training rifle is zeroed at 50 and my competition rifle is zeroed at 200, 300, and 600.

ditto, cept my trainer (.22 upper) is zeroed for 50ft (my indoor range). shooting at the 50ft smallbore/slow fire targets makes for a near-perfect sight picture.

derek, you obviously zero for 200, but how many clicks up off bottom do you start? (ie, leave yourself 5? 10? 20 clicks down for changing light?)
 
Like others have said it depends on your purpose for the rifle. I like to set up my hunting rifles for Maximum Point Blank Range (MPBR) . Meaning setting the trajectory so it will shoot the farthest with out rising or falling out of the kill zone. If you have a 12 inch kill zone like on a deer you have 6 inches above and below dead center to allow your bullet to rise and reguardless if it is at 100 yard or 380 your bullet is going to be a lethal hit.

With my 300 win mag it is zeroed at 300 yards which gives me a MPBR of approx 380 yards on a deer sized kill zone (12 inch circle). 3 inches high at 100, 3.5 inches high at 200, dead on at 300 and 6 inches low at 380. Any deer within 380 yards I should be able to hold dead center on the chest and not have to adjust for elevation out to 380 yards.
 
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Take this with a grain of salt because I suck and I'm brand new to shooting rifles BUT..........I have a cheapo scope from Dick's with a paralax adjustment. I set the paralax adjustment to 25yds along with the target and away I go.
 
It all depends on what I'm shooting for ammo and what I am going to be shooting AT.

I ight in at 100yds because that is what my range is. I use an online ballistic program. Input where (distance) it is zeroed, bullet weight, muzzle velocity, and ballistic coefficient of the bullet, and it can tell you how high or low you will be at any distance.

I set up my 30-06 with 180 grain bullets to be 3" high at 100 yards. That put me right on at about 220 yards and about 6" low at 300 yards. In theory it will hit within a 9" pie plate anywhere out to 300 yards. This turned out to be good enough for Elk sized game at 300 yards.

EDIT to add: Essentially the same theory Arlow used above.
 
My generic 'zero' with a fixed sight is set so that based on the ballistics of that cartridge (note I said cartridge, not caliber) any shot taken will be within 4" of POA from muzzle to where the round is dropping fast.

You need to spend time with a ballistics calculator to work it out, but it gives you the best range and still makes good hits. The ballistics curve will also tell you how far off POA you will be at various ranges. This usually means most shots go high and allow you to make compensations as needed.

With my Beowulf, this method puts me exactly 4" high at 100 yards.

For a target sights or scopes that have easy to use elevation adjustments, I generally sight in 100 yards and then use other ranges to determine 'clicks' for those ranges.

Each cartridge will have its own table in my notebook regarding clicks at various ranges.

Be sure that once you get your zero that you mark the adjuster and carefully count the number of clicks to the bottom so that when the kids or students mess with your sights, you can quickly get back to your zero. (both mark and count is required because marks tend to disappear, but you need that mark to be sure after you count down that your count back up is accurate.)

With the AR, I used the modified Battlesight zero (search the net) and that has worked out well. Appleseed range is 400 - 2 clicks on my A2. (^_^) (strange how I've memorized that one)

Whatever method you use, it is good to keep a small notebook with your shooting gear to keep all the data in so that you never have to waste shots to align your sights to a known distance that you've already used.
 
Take this with a grain of salt because I suck and I'm brand new to shooting rifles BUT..........I have a cheapo scope from Dick's with a paralax adjustment. I set the paralax adjustment to 25yds along with the target and away I go.

Not trying to be rude, but all that parallax adjustment does is bring that DISTANCE into FOCUS with relation to the cross-hairs. It does nothing to change where the bullet actually impacts. Try shooting your rifle at 25 yards, put the cross-hairs dead center of the bullseye. Shoot 5 shots at 25 yards. They should be grouped, maybe not in the bullseye, but they should all be quite close to one another. Now post that same target out at 50 or even 100 yards and repeat. Aim at bulleye, 5 shots. My guess is that you aren't going to have all 10 shots in a nice tight group. The second group of 5 will be clustered elsewhere, either higher or lower. This is due to the rise and fall (trajectory) of the bullet.

AR15 in 5.56 for example: Say you are dead on at 50 yards, that's your zero. Now you go to the 200 yard range, your bullet is actually going to strike HIGHER than where you aimed it because the bullet is still rising out of the barrel. That bullet will, however, strike where you were aiming it again at 300 yards because that's where the trajectory again crosses your sights. There are charts out there, just a simple google search, to tell you exactly how high or low your bullet will strike at certain distances with a specific zero. Check it out.


Hope this helps a little.
 
Not trying to be rude, but all that parallax adjustment does is bring that DISTANCE into FOCUS with relation to the cross-hairs. It does nothing to change where the bullet actually impacts. Try shooting your rifle at 25 yards, put the cross-hairs dead center of the bullseye. Shoot 5 shots at 25 yards. They should be grouped, maybe not in the bullseye, but they should all be quite close to one another. Now post that same target out at 50 or even 100 yards and repeat. Aim at bulleye, 5 shots. My guess is that you aren't going to have all 10 shots in a nice tight group. The second group of 5 will be clustered elsewhere, either higher or lower. This is due to the rise and fall (trajectory) of the bullet.

AR15 in 5.56 for example: Say you are dead on at 50 yards, that's your zero. Now you go to the 200 yard range, your bullet is actually going to strike HIGHER than where you aimed it because the bullet is still rising out of the barrel. That bullet will, however, strike where you were aiming it again at 300 yards because that's where the trajectory again crosses your sights. There are charts out there, just a simple google search, to tell you exactly how high or low your bullet will strike at certain distances with a specific zero. Check it out.


Hope this helps a little.

That does help, thank you. I have no one to shoot with that knows this stuff so I usually go alone and learn by research, trial and error.

I did know (or thought) that the "paralax" adjustment does not take into account the bullets trajectory it just compensates for the different plains the barrel and scope are on at different distances. Since I am so new I have no intention of leaving my 25 yard range for quite some time so factoring the bullets flight path is still a ways out for me.
 
For my fun gun (read tacticool m4gery) I do 50/200 (improved battle sight zero). Others are usually 100 yrds.
 
All my hunting rifles (6mm Rem, 270 Win, 30-30 Win, 300 Win Mag and 35 Whelen) are/were sighted in three inches high at 100 yards. This seems to be the magic number for most hunting rounds, keeping the bullet +/- 4 inches out to 225-300 yards, well past a distance I’m likely to shoot in the north east.

Respectfully,
jkelly
 
scoped log guns
10/22: 50/100 yards (off by a couple clicks between std velocity & mini mags though)

.223 Bolt Gun: 100 yards

irons / non-magnified optics
AR: 50 yards for red dot / irons
 
Depends on the rifle and the distance I intend to shoot.
My 308 long range gun is 600yard zero, midrange hunting 30-06 is at 200, AR-15's are battle sight zero
 
Depends on the rifle and the distance I intend to shoot.
My 308 long range gun is 600yard zero, midrange hunting 30-06 is at 200, AR-15's are battle sight zero

+1

My AR is sighted at 50 yards. That gives me about +/- 1.5" from line of sight all the way to 220 yards or so and 7" low at 300.
 
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For scope-sighted, flat-shooting hunting rifles, I usually go 1-1/2"-2" high at 100yds.

For a slower-speed hunting rifle (30-30, 35rem, etc.) I'll zero it at 100yds.

For a plinking gun (shooting clay birds on a berm, etc.) I will zero it for that exact range.

For NM rifles (AR's or M14's), there are three zeroes (200, 300, and 600yds).
 
I zero my Remington R-15 .223 at 100 yards. I am using a Nikon 4.5-14 Coyote scope and the BDC recticle is specifically calibrated for zeroing in with55 grain bullets at 100 yards.
 
For NM rifles (AR's or M14's), there are three zeroes (200, 300, and 600yds).
I guess what I meant is that I pick 600 as my basic zero and base my comeups on that. Since I shoot only mid and long range prone, it makes more sense for me to start at 600. Kind of a middle distance if you will.
 
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